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Oct. 28 — Super political action committees closely linked to Democratic and Republican leaders
in Congress have raised a total of $228 million from big contributors, companies,
unions and others giving up to $40 million each to help battle for control of the
House and Senate.

The Democrats’ main super PACs—Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC—together
had raised just under $120 million for the 2016 election cycle through Oct. 19, according
to their final pre-election disclosure reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission.
The Democrats’ Senate super PAC has raised a total of $73.2 million, while its House
counterpart collected $46.5 million.

The Republican super PACs—Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund—trailed
the Democrats slightly, raising a total of just over $108 million in the same period.
The GOP’s Senate Leadership Fund has tallied $64.5 million, while the Congressional
Leadership Fund has racked up $43.6 million.

Each side received huge infusions of money in recent weeks to fund last-minute advertising
blitzes in key battleground states and congressional districts. The final FEC reports
showed nearly
$40 million collected by the Democratic and Republican Senate super PACs between Oct.
1 and Oct. 19, while another $20 million flooded into the parties’ House super PAC
coffers in the same period.

Secret Money

No matter which side prevails on Election Day, the winners will have received key
support from some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals, along with companies, unions
and associations that are bound to have interests before Congress.

Some of these contributors won’t be known to the public. While the sources of most
of the super PACs’
money were disclosed in the FEC reports, some contributions were given by nonprofit
organizations or obscure corporations that don’t disclose their donors.

For example, an $11 million contribution made this month to the Republican super PAC
Senate Leadership Fund, which is closely linked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), was provided by One Nation, a Section 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that
keeps its donors secret. A spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund and One Nation
did not respond to a request for information about the contribution.

Lawrence Noble, a former FEC general counsel now with the nonprofit Campaign Legal
Center, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail that, if the donors to One Nation knew their
money was going to be contributed to the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, then the
failure to report those donors as the source of contributions violated campaign finance
disclosure laws.

“Even if they claim the contributors didn’t know exactly where the money would end
up, funneling money through a (c)(4) to a super PAC to hide the identity of donors
makes a mockery of the disclosure laws, and should not be allowed,” Noble said.

Funneling super PAC money through nondisclosing entities denies voters the right to
know the sources of money influencing their elections, Noble said. He added that the
public has “no way of knowing if the $11 million came from one large donor, special
interests or even foreign nationals or foreign governments.”

Adelsons’ Contributions Lead

One Nation has worked hand-in-glove with the Senate Leadership Fund in the past. For
example, the nonprofit sponsored an estimated $21 million worth of television ads
supporting Republicans in key Senate races until more stringent reporting regulations
took effect in September. Then, the super PAC took over and began sponsoring ads in
the same races.

A similar arrangement was apparent on the Democratic side, where a nonprofit called
Majority Forward sponsored ads in key races and worked cooperatively with the Senate
Majority PAC. Majority Forward, also a 501(c)(4) exempt group that keeps its donors
secret, has contributed directly to the Democratic super PAC as well, providing
$32,000 this month in salary, rent and insurance costs, according to the super PAC’s
latest disclosure report.

The disclosed contributions to both parties’
super PACs included multimillion-dollar contributions from wealthy donors. The leading
donor on the Republican side, Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands Corp., along with
his wife, Miriam, gave a total of $40 million—$20 million each to the Republicans’
House and Senate super PACs.

On the Democratic side, Fred Eychaner of Newsweb Corp. gave $20 million to the main
congressional super PACs—$10 million each to the Democrats’ House and Senate PACs.

While several other billionaires gave to the parties’ super PACs, these PACs also
received millions from companies, unions and trade associations with interests bound
to be impacted by the next Congress. These include publicly trade companies like a
unit of energy giant Chevron Corp., which gave $1 million each to the Republicans’
House and Senate super PACs. Meanwhile, union organizations like the Laborers International
Union and the AFL-CIO’s Working America, have provided millions to Democratic super
PACs.

In addition, private companies and some trade associations also gave money. For example,
the PAC of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America this month gave $100,000
to the Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund, according to the most recent FEC
reports. The association PAC also gave $25,000 each to the Democrats’ Senate Majority
PAC and the GOP Senate Leadership Fund.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kenneth P. Doyle in Washington at
kdoyle@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Paul Hendrie at
phendrie@bna.com

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